Subsequent truths

[Justtristo]

deleted

[Godscreated]

Godschild. I worry that you don't even know which language many of the scriptures were originally written in.
The concept of time measured in "hours" was not defined when Genesis was written. Day was used (as even you acknowledged) to signify both a solar day and a significant period in time. A day of destiny does not literally mean 24 hours. Why you keep measuring the lunar calendar is beyond me as the moon wasn't created until day 4 (and it says nothing about it being set in motion). Time in the old testament cannot be accurately judged by modern standards because of a lack of understanding of basic principles regarding the motions of the sun and the moon. Seasons were often counted as years which also led to mistakes during bouts of unusual weather. If you take away our modern definitions of hour, day, month, year etc. how WOULD you describe 6 separate periods of creation? Ergo, saying it was the first day (of Creation) does not mean it was the first 24 hours. Let's face it, Genesis doesn't even say which day God started on (because Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. didn't exist as words when Genesis was written), so why assume Saturday or Sunday is his Sabbath? The Babylonians hadn't sold Moses one of their new Pirelli Calendars so with the greatest of respect to the author of the first few books, he didn't really have much of a handle on timekeeping or recording.
Suggesting it took place at night was what we normal people call "a joke" because it says "the evening and the morning were the n'th day" and not vice versa.
Did I deny his omnipotence or did I suggest that he had chosen a particular method of creation? What I have done is remove all human limits from him. I simply believe that human ideas of time have been added to the story to help people make sense of it, so everything fits in a place. It simply isn't necessary and it makes no sense to make the literal translation so fundamental to having faith in God.
The Bible does not clearly draw distinctions between metaphor, parable, poetic language and historical account. One important reason it doesn't and can't is because it is an in-annotated collection of different writings from different sources that were collected over a period of 300 years and chosen by a committee. This committee chose and rejected scripture for a range of different.t reasons, which we simply are not party to. Politics, power, personal beliefs, favourite texts? The bible is not infallible.
By insisting upon the 6 day creation rather than what is obviously observable, you say you get a really nice image of God. So your preferred view of God is more important than what is obvious to all basic observations?
Creating the universe is awesome no matter how long it took. Is all you want a game of "my God's better than your God"?

Just because a day was not defined by a 24 hour time period does not mean that the days were not 24 hours long, you need to get real. I use the lunar calendar statement because that is how the Jewish calender is laid out. The day is defined as a lunar day in scripture, always, unless the word day was used to define a certain period of time as, in the days of David. The Jewish calender has never used seasons to define years, so how you come up with seasons being counted as years in a book written by the Hebrews is beyond me. The scriptures do call distinction between poetic languages, parables, history, prophecy and ect., I'm not sure why you can not understand this unless you do not study scripture. Just exactly how does observation have anything to do with disproving a six day creation, also to say that God did not create all in six days is to limit (deny) God's omnipotence and omniscience. My God is the only God and if you can not accept Him for who He is without making Him fit in your world view then that's on you. The scriptures are very clear that we are to fit into who God is not what we want Him to be. To many so called christians want to make Jesus fit their life style, yet Jesus was very clear that one is to accept Him for who He is and what He desires us to be. By the way you are the one who said that there is more than one way to come to the Father, this denies the authority of Christ and promotes a false doctrine and Paul taught that the church was to take a stand against those who preach a false doctrine. Now I guess you are going to say that Paul took his own initiative on this matter, yet Jesus is the One who sent Paul to the gentiles to give us the truths of Christ and His bride.

[Faith No More]

This is the Christian version of a cat fight

[The Grand Nudger]

"Get real", from one christian to another. How do you propose that one might do that when referring to a magical construct?

[5thHorseman]

'My God is the only God and if you can not accept Him for who He is without making Him fit in your world view then that's on you.'

Gotta love your blinding arrogance GC.

[chadster1976]

GC. The "Jewish Calendar" exists only in your head I am afraid. There was no proper measurement of time by the people there during the times of the early Old Testament. You can look that one up if you like. When you have bothered to look that up, you will understand why I said seasons were sometimes inadvertently counted as years. Nobody really live until they were in their 800's! When there is no calendar or measurement, lots of mistakes are easily made.
Have you looked up the old language thingy yet? Thought not.
How is saying that God could create the universe in any time-frame he wanted, limiting God in any way? If you can't see a failure in logic there then you are lost.

It is quite clear you do not understand literary tools, such as metaphor, if you insist they are all clearly labelled in the Bible.

Your god is the only god... Breathtaking arrogance! Essentially saying that YOU are right and so infallible. Are you Jesus? No. You are a human; a fallible human. Arrogance has no place in a Christian. You have chosen to interpret the Bible in a way that defies logic and observation. You have chosen to pigeon-hole God into some badly translated words, handed down orally for generations before being scribed in Greek, Hebrew, Latin and variously translated between them all until being collated by a fallible committee some few thousands of years later. God, if you truly believe in his limitless power, is not bound by the writings of one person. You seem annoyed by me insisting upon the relevance of observation. That is because what I see IS God's work. If you turn your back on what is obvious and insist on believing in an illogical interpretation of the Bible, you are turning your back on His work. Just because dinosaurs aren't in the Bible, would you deny that God could have brought about their creation and demise? Isn't that limiting God? How can you close your eyes to the beauty and intricacies of his work by insisting that only a subjective collection of sometimes inaccurate writings is true? God is not who you want him to be. God is who God is and your insistence that he is who YOU say he is limits his power and (judging by your spectacular lack of logic and study) his intelligence. You have essentially resorted to an "if I shout louder and angrier than you, then I am right!" posture.
Yes, I did say that there is more than one way to come to the Father from the ideal of the Hindu perspective. I didn't say we should follow other religions. I was saying it from the perspective of one Christian not saying another was not a Christian! I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian, even though I think your over-literal interpretation is completely bonkers. I just wish for a similar courtesy to be extended, accepting that we all seek the same thing with pure hearts but we interpret the same messages in slightly different ways.
I don't think God loves you any less for being bonkers, although careful with the arrogance and anger. God isn't keen on either of those.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

GC. The "Jewish Calendar" exists only in your head I am afraid. There was no proper measurement of time by the people there during the times of the early Old Testament

It's more than a little disingenuous (or simply ignorant) to claim there was no Jewish calendar

From Wikipedia

The Hebrew calendar (הלוח העברי ha'luach ha'ivri), or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits (dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is an official calendar for civil purposes and provides a time frame for agriculture.

Originally the Hebrew calendar was used by Jews for all daily purposes, but following the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE (see also Iudaea province), Jews began additionally following the imperial civil calendar, which was decreed in 45 BCE, for civic matters such as the payment of taxes and dealings with government officials.

The Hebrew calendar has evolved over time. For example, until the Tannaitic period, the months were set by observation of a new crescent moon, with an additional month added every two or three years to keep Passover in the spring, again based on observation of natural events, namely the ripening of the barley crop, the age of the kids lambs and doves, the ripeness of the fruit trees, and the relation to the Tekufah.[1] Through the Amoraic period and into the Geonic period, this system was displaced by mathematical rules. The principles and rules appear to have been settled by the time Maimonides compiled the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century.

Because of the roughly eleven-day difference between twelve lunar months and one solar year, the length of the Hebrew calendar year varies in the repeating 19-year Metonic cycle of 235 lunar months, with the intercalary month added according to defined rules every two or three years, for a total of 7 times per 19 years. Seasonal references in the Hebrew calendar reflect its development in the region east of the Mediterranean and the times and climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 25+25/57 seconds than the present-day mean solar year, so that every 224 years, the Hebrew calendar will fall a full day behind the modern solar year, and about every 231 years it will fall a full day behind the Gregorian calendar year.

The present counting method for years use the Anno Mundi epoch (Latin for "in the year of the world", לבריאת העולם), abbreviated AM or A.M. and also referred to as the Hebrew era. Hebrew year 5771 (a leap year) began on 9 September 2010 and ended on 28 September 2011. Hebrew year 5772 began at sunset on 28 September 2011 and will end on 16 September 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_calendar


It's also sublime chutzpah for a Catholic to complain about what other Christians say about Catholics.To this day, the Catholic church continues to teach that all other Christian churches are in error.

Get over yourself.

[Godscreated]

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GC. The "Jewish Calendar" exists only in your head I am afraid. There was no proper measurement of time by the people there during the times of the early Old Testament. You can look that one up if you like. When you have bothered to look that up, you will understand why I said seasons were sometimes inadvertently counted as years. Nobody really live until they were in their 800's! When there is no calendar or measurement, lots of mistakes are easily made.
Have you looked up the old language thingy yet? Thought not.
How is saying that God could create the universe in any time-frame he wanted, limiting God in any way? If you can't see a failure in logic there then you are lost.

It is quite clear you do not understand literary tools, such as metaphor, if you insist they are all clearly labelled in the Bible.

Your god is the only god... Breathtaking arrogance! Essentially saying that YOU are right and so infallible. Are you Jesus? No. You are a human; a fallible human. Arrogance has no place in a Christian. You have chosen to interpret the Bible in a way that defies logic and observation. You have chosen to pigeon-hole God into some badly translated words, handed down orally for generations before being scribed in Greek, Hebrew, Latin and variously translated between them all until being collated by a fallible committee some few thousands of years later. God, if you truly believe in his limitless power, is not bound by the writings of one person. You seem annoyed by me insisting upon the relevance of observation. That is because what I see IS God's work. If you turn your back on what is obvious and insist on believing in an illogical interpretation of the Bible, you are turning your back on His work. Just because dinosaurs aren't in the Bible, would you deny that God could have brought about their creation and demise? Isn't that limiting God? How can you close your eyes to the beauty and intricacies of his work by insisting that only a subjective collection of sometimes inaccurate writings is true? God is not who you want him to be. God is who God is and your insistence that he is who YOU say he is limits his power and (judging by your spectacular lack of logic and study) his intelligence. You have essentially resorted to an "if I shout louder and angrier than you, then I am right!" posture.
Yes, I did say that there is more than one way to come to the Father from the ideal of the Hindu perspective. I didn't say we should follow other religions. I was saying it from the perspective of one Christian not saying another was not a Christian! I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian, even though I think your over-literal interpretation is completely bonkers. I just wish for a similar courtesy to be extended, accepting that we all seek the same thing with pure hearts but we interpret the same messages in slightly different ways.
I don't think God loves you any less for being bonkers, although careful with the arrogance and anger. God isn't keen on either of those.

---

Once again, the reason I stated the lunar calendar is because that's the calendar the nation of Israel used. The use of a lunar calendar is why the scriptures say "and there was evening and there was morning" to describe a 24 hour day. Moses was raised as an Egyptian and the Egyptians had a calendar before Moses was born, so yes Moses knew good and well what a calendar was. As far as the long lived men of scripture, I believe that to be true, using the Jewish lunar calendar and counting back the years, their ages fit. Your problem is that you do not think God can communicate with Moses, again your lack of acknowledging God's omnipotence. My God is the God of scripture, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this is the only God, none other exist. I am neither infallible nor all knowing, on the contrary, I'm exactly as God says one of His fallen creatures who needs His grace every day. I do not try to make God fit into any kind of mold, He is who HE says He is in scripture. There is no other way I can know Him except by His revelation through scriptures. I do not need to shout at you and I haven't and as far as making God into something He is not you've tried to by saying God is Hindu, Buddhist and ect. Also I'm not mad at you, but as far as a slight difference in interpretation you are way off base as far as I see it.

[KichigaiNeko]

Umm pagans also used the midnight to midnight lunar calendar ...and they never get a mention

[chadster1976]

Moses, raised as an Egyptian, is trying to rationalize the stories from the oral tradition. The time of creation from scriptures comes from an inaccurate, arbitrary countback to zero. It was not measured from zero upwards. Adam and Eve had no calendar to record their passage through time. Who says I don't believe God could communicate with Moses? What I say is Moses is not infallible so neither are his scriptures. Simple logic, surely?
The Jewish calendar existing only in GS head comment was relating to the fact that there were generations before it was brought into being. Generations of poorly understood and poorly counted passages of time.
I don't want to repeat myself but... insisting God must have acted in a way contrary to basic observation is not "faith", it is ludicrous. Accepting that God created all we observe is rational and realistic, not limiting. I don't say God couldn't have made the universe in 6 days, I say he didn't because all observation and measurement is to the contrary. Whoever said either the Bible is the word of God or it isn't is missing the point. The Bible is the Word of God, interpreted and transcribed by men; fallible (and sometimes political) men.
When I was coming back to Christianity after a long time as a self-declared atheist, I spoke to a Priest about my doubts. His response was "Good. I'm glad you have doubts. Blind faith is no faith at all. Hopefully we can find some answers."
The Catholic church also does not teach that all other churches are wrong. Why, Herr Pope has even made a special allowance for Anglicans to join, if they aren't happy about reforms by the General Synod.
God is who God is. I think we have a fundamental disagreement insofar as I say the scripture is there to help is find him, you say the scriptures define him and thus you have found him. Knowing how fallible man can be (you should see how many times I've had to sort out my tax-code, no thanks to the man at the Inland Revenue), I think your opinion is dangerously close to putting your fingers in your ears, shouting loudly and ignoring the potential truth. There truly is nothing more dangerous than a man who knows they are right...